Page 159 - The Midnight Library

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obviously know. So she stared out of the window as the coach drove along

the four-lane highway. e glowing tail-lights of cars and lorries and
motorbikes in the dark, like red and watching eyes. Distant skyscrapers with
a few tiny squares of light against a humid backdrop of dark sky and darker
clouds. A shadowy army of trees lined the sides and middle of the highway,

splitting the traffic into two directions.
If she was still in this life tomorrow evening, she would be expected to
perform an entire concert’s worth of songs, most of which she didn’t actually
know. She wondered how quickly she could learn the set list.

Her phone rang. A video call. e caller was ‘Ryan’.
Joanna saw the name and smirked a little. ‘You’d better get that.’
So she did, even though she had no idea who this Ryan was, and the
image on the screen seemed too blurr y to recognise.

But then he was there. A face she had seen, in movies and imaginings,
many times.
‘Hey, babe. Just checking in with a friend. We’re still friends, right?’
She knew the voice too.

American, rugged, charming. Famous.
She heard Joanna whispering to someone else on the coach: ‘She’s on the
phone to Ryan Bailey.’